“Kat—” His words cut off in an exasperated sigh. “I’d tell you, I swear. But there’s nothing wrong with me that time and a good, long run won’t fix, okay?”
“All right.” She settled back against the couch and watched him. “I guess…I don’t know how this goes.
There are so many rules I don’t get. The ones that no one explains, like what it means to your instincts if I’m with Andrew.”
“Honestly? Not much.” He tossed the busted controller aside and used the remote to turn off the television. “We were never going to be a thing, not like you and Andrew. There’s no sense in getting upset about it. I mean, it’s not like I didn’t know.”
He always had, because she’d never lied. There was no reason to—both of them understood the futility of lies when dealing with powerful psychics. It was why she told the truth now. “I was avoiding you. If Andrew had tried to tell me I couldn’t hang out with you…it would have gotten ugly. I couldn’t handle any more ugly last week.”
Miguel snorted. “If Andrew had a problem with me, I’d know better than you. He couldn’t hide that, any more than I could lie to him if I wanted you for my own. Some things, you just can’t do.”
A dish clattered in the kitchen, and Sera stuck her head out. “He’s right,” she said, proving that she’d been enjoying the shapeshifter pastime of eavesdropping on conversations they shouldn’t have been able to hear to begin with. “If Andrew was having instinctive issues with you and Miguel, he wouldn’t have been able to leave you here. The place smells like Miguel, you know.”
A thousand little cues, and sometimes Kat wondered if interpreting the subtle intricacies would ever feel natural. “Uh-huh. To my human nose, the place smells like pizza. Is it almost done cooking?”
Sera ducked back into the kitchen, her voice drifting back down the hallway. “Five minutes.”
“Five minutes,” Kat echoed, nodding to Miguel. “If a run would help, why don’t you go take one after we eat?”
“Yeah, maybe,” he replied vaguely.
Andrew’s words came back to her, the ones he’d whispered before he kissed her goodbye. “It’s just some guy throwing his weight around. He thinks Julio and I are weak, so we’re going to talk to him, face-to-face. I’ll come to your place when we’re done. ” They’d seemed innocent, at the time.
They had better have been innocent. “Is there a reason you can’t leave?”
Miguel tensed. “Are you going to get pissed off if I say yes?”
She was going to kill Andrew, or at least beat him within an inch of begging for death. “I’m already pissed. I’m going to be fucking furious if you lie to me.”
He shrugged a split second before someone knocked on the door. “You’re not going to get to be alone much anymore. You need to talk to Andrew about it.”
Stunned, Kat stared at him as Sera started for the front door. “If something else came up with the cult, they should have told me. That shit was supposed to be over—”
“It’s not the cult,” he argued.
“What’s not the cult?” Anna asked as she walked in, a battered knapsack slung over one shoulder.
“Kat was just demanding to know why she’s being babysat.”
The woman chuckled as she dropped to the sofa beside him. “Welcome to being involved in wolf politics. I can’t think of anyone on any of the regional councils who doesn’t employ at least casual security for their families.”
Kat opened her mouth to protest, then closed it again. Andrew and Julio were members of the council, but they didn’t have families to protect, not besides Miguel and— “Carmen. Are you telling me your sister puts up with a bodyguard and hasn’t strangled Alec for it yet?”
Miguel reached for the soda he’d left sitting on the coffee table. “Carmen’s had one since they went to New York. It’s not optional for Conclave members. Even Alec finally stopped fighting it.”
The world tilted. “Alec. Alec has a bodyguard?”
Anna plucked the soda can from Miguel’s hand. “Like he said—it’s not optional. There are too many people who’d like to avoid challenges with Conclave members and are willing to fight dirty to do it.”
Kat pinned Sera with a look. “Did you know?”
“Me?” Sera tossed her kitchen towel over her shoulder, a casual gesture that didn’t distract from the tightness in her eyes. “I’m a coyote, Kat. A backwoods hick coyote. I don’t have a clue how shapeshifter royalty lives.”
Maybe Andrew hadn’t known, either. She’d give him a chance to say that, before she screamed at him.
“So every time some wolf gets pissy with Julio or Andrew, I’m going to end up with a babysitter? Just because I’m dating a council member?”
“For a while.” Anna seemed unapologetic. “This is the life, Kat, love it or hate it. The same thing would’ve gone down if your cousin had taken that council spot he earned instead of running off with Nick.”
In some ways, it still had. From the day Derek had married the Alpha’s daughter, Kat had weighed all of her decisions against the sure knowledge that she could be used as leverage. Hadn’t that been part of the reason she’d pushed herself in endless rounds with Zola? But in New Orleans, she’d been removed from that. Outside of the immediate sphere of John Peyton and his enemies.
It wouldn’t be the same with Andrew. His enemies would come to him, and she’d be at his side. It wouldn’t matter that she could turn their brains to Jell-O and erase their existences—she looked like a tempting target. They’d come after her, again and again, and she’d have to defend herself. How many times could she use her mind to crush out someone’s life before the darkness started to numb her to the horror of it?
They were all staring at her, even Sera, until the timer went off in the kitchen and she swore and took off to rescue the pizza.
Kat looked at Anna. “It’s more complicated than I realized.”
“It always is.” She made a face and then dug the video game controller out from behind her back.
“Anyway, I’m the next shift, so…get lost, Mendoza.”
He rose, but his troubled gaze remained on Kat. “I can stay, if you want.”
His turn to be protective, her turn to smile and pretend she was fine. “Go on. I’m sick of boys, anyway.”
“Yeah, yeah. Girl time.” He gathered his stuff and left silently.
“He must be going nuts not to stick around for pizza,” Anna observed.
“He has good days and bad days.” Kat leaned back and closed her eyes. “Jesus, Anna. Who the hell does someone like Alec hire as a bodyguard? He’s already the scariest person I know.”
She laughed. “It’s not his job to be scarier than Alec, just to make sure no one can sneak up and get the drop on them. To take over Alec’s role of raving, paranoid lunatic, if you will.”
“Sounds like fun.” At least she’d recovered her sense of sarcasm. “I’m not sure I want one of those following me around. I didn’t like having Alec following me around, either, and I was a lot more tolerant at twenty.”
Anna pulled a tattered paperback out of her bag. “Now that? Is none of my business.”
It wasn’t Anna’s business, and the fact that Kat was tempted to press the issue was proof of how far she’d come from jealousy and self-consciousness. Whatever Anna knew—or didn’t know—about Andrew and his plans to put Kat under 24/7 surveillance, she clearly had no intention of breaking alpha ranks.
The dominant shapeshifters rarely did…and Sera’s Sharpie reminder on the bathroom mirror was starting to make a lot more sense. No fucking alpha bastards, indeed. Kat had climbed into bed with one, and this was what came of it.